Custer chronicle. [volume] (Custer City, Black Hills, D.T. [S.D.]) 1880-1890, 1887-10-22
THE ROYAL CASTE.
AN ARISTOCRACY HOLDING POSI-
TON FAR ABOVE NOBILITY.

The Precedence Of It's Members Accom-.
panied by the slavish Respect Once
Paid Also to the Nobies-A Curious
Mark of Grade.
An occasion like the jubilee brings out
very sharply the singular social position
OF the royal caste of Europe. That caste,
which consists essentially of two families
or clans, all the Catholic and all the Prot
estant royalties being more or less closely
related either by marriage or by blood, is
growing numerous, and tends to become
q minute but closely knit aristocracy,
claiming, and in certain ways securing, a
position greatly above that of the Euro
pean nobility. The precedence Of its
members, besides being uncontested, as
that of no noble is, is European instead of
local, and is accompanied, and, as it were,
marked, by a d%eferential and ever slavish
respect, which was once paid also to the
Eobles, but is now in their case slowly
but p%erceptibly dying away. No noble is
now beyond the law, as some of the
princes, at least-e. g., the heads Of the
mediatized families-undoubtedly are.
CURIOUS MARK OF GRADE.
1t is a curious mark of grade, but it is
a very real one, that on the continent OF
Europe a prince is the only man except a
priest who cannot be compelled to accept
q challenge. He has theoretically no equal
except in his own caste, and even imperi.
Gus military opinion acknowledges his ex.
emption. Certain forms too are observed
In receiving sld in addressing royalties
which are not maintained for any other
human beings, and they are waited on
even by mobiles as gentlemen would be
ashamed to wait ON the members of any
other class. Though, rs a rule, not
wealthy, and undistinguished either by
intellectual ability or service to the states
to which they belong, they are everywhere
treated as ''the first" and maintain, with
out exciting envy, an eXcluSiveness as
rigid as that Of Indian Brahinins or pious
Jews. They marry only among them
selves; they claim and enforce q special
marriage privilege, which is, in fact, a
right to have their recognized concubines
acknowledged by society; and though the
fortunes some Of them possess are dis
tributed with a strange inequality, and
they begin TO be solicitous for wealth, yet
they resist with immovable tenacity what
must be the severe temptation to absorb
the great heiresses of European society.
A Colonna may marry the daughter of
the greatest of American money makers,
and the d~erogation is forgiven for the
gain; but the poorest Hohenzollern or
Bourbon may not stoop to the most beauti-
full or accomplished lady OF many millions.
They begin more and more to associate
only with each other, roaming over
Europe 70 avoid the tedium Of a too con-
tracted social circle; and at all ceremonial
functions they superscdc alike the mobiles
and the statesmen. In the arrangements
for the jubilee, for example, ''tEe princes"
known and unknown, illustrious and OBJ
scure, were all alike in front. and the
great mobiles and high placed pcrsonages
of the realm, soldiers or statesmen or
diplomats, were all rclcgated TO the crowd.
No noble except Lord Iorne appeared in
the procession as an invited guest, and the
exception only made the rule more con-
spicuous.
ROYALTY EVERYWHERE FIRST.
Courts settle rank in Europe, and the
courts unanimously insist that the de-
scendants Of royalty, even il dethroned,
shall count everywhere first. Not only
will the kings not marry, legally at oil
events, outside the elan, but they exert a
steady end effective pressure ia favor Of
restricting al thrones when vacant to tho
elan alone. Nothing can be more absurd
in theory than for q new state like Bel
GUM or Bulgaria, which needs an organ
izing chief, a statesman or a soldier,
to choose a prince who may or may
not be capable OF ruling; but the
statesmen know well that if they step out
giln tina clan tAEnrnrNaan SyTnnafhy will
be forfeited" or, in palmer words, that
the sOvereiEns WHO move armies will
think they are dealing with disagreeable
upstarts. Bernaaotte only kept his
throne at the price of turning on his own
country-where he is still regarded as a
traitor-and King Milan, the only men,
Der Of an obscure family with a recognized
crown, Will probably lose for want Of the
determined protection that, had he been
born within the caste, would have been
afforded him. That protection was not,
it is true, granted TO Alexander of Batten-
berg; but then, the Battenbergs are hardly
royal, and protection TO him might have
precipitated the gravest of all wars. The
moment he was gone, the Bulgarians ex-
amined Europe with a microscope to find
al acceptable prince; but they knew per-
fectly well that their choice was re-
stricted to those whom the sovereigns re-
cognize as socially their equals.
1t is that recognition, not birth alone,
which gives the princely caste it's unique
and almost inexplicable place in Europe;
and as long as that recognition continues
SO long will that place be maintained. In
other words, the social privilege of the
princely caste will probably endure as
long as the great monarchies-a period
which may be ages, or may, in spite Of APP
~pcaranccs, be shortened to decades
Home Journal.
The Boiled Shirt" Must Go.